In our debut column about 360 Achievements, OXM’s executive editor and resident score-a-holic recalls how he rekindled his love for those golden points…

Once upon a time, I loved Gamerscore. More truthfully: LOVED IT. I obsessed over points with every 360 game I played, and many games, I played purely for points. I was exactly what Microsoft probably dreamed about in conceiving the whole Achievements system: completely addicted to that imaginary number in the ether.

And then, maybe a year ago, something happened. As in many long-term relationships, a cooling period set in. (Don’t worry: I’m not about to dwell on the relationship metaphor, nor is this column some kind of Dear John letter to Gamerscore. Promise.) I hit a certain five-digit number and then contentment — the darkest, most vile enemy of Gamerscore growth — set in. I stopped my standard M.O. of painstakingly scrutinizing a game’s Achievements list before I started, so that I could plot out a points-based plan of attack. I did less late-night tracking of my friends’ Gamerscores. Achievements became...somehow…an afterthought.

And then last June, one of our best-ever interns, Nick Pino, started his three-month stint on our edit team. Having traveled cross-country to stay in the San Francisco area for his internship, Nick had plenty of time to kill in his off-hours, and he established a firm goal early on: to return home with as much Gamerscore as he could earn while he had access to OXM’s cavernous game library. To that end, he asked me if I’d give him some tips on earning Achievements. How could I refuse?

Soon, a daily pattern emerged: at the end of each day in the office, Nick and I would stroll over to OXM’s game library — which is, a bit oddly, inside some locked cabinets inside a locked room, farther down the hall than we’d like — and I’d help him pick out a game to play that night. A game that’d give him the most number of points in the least amount of time.

Oh, the Gamerscore to be had!

My first suggestions, of course, were the obvious ones: Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Burning Earth. TMNT. Truth or Lies. College Hoops 2K6. Backyard Football ’10. When he’d exploited those gimmes, we moved on to other fare: Fight Night Round 3 on Easy difficulty. Band Hero. Jumper: Griffin’s Story. Megamind: Ultimate Showdown (which almost broke his resolve, it’s so painfully bad). When whole games got old, we narrowed the focus to certain easy Achievements, like ones for watching a game’s credits (in Tiger Woods 10, Hail to the Chimp, Monsters vs. Aliens, and more) — which he could let roll while he went to lunch — and start-menu Achievements (in, say, The Simpsons Game and Viva Piñata: Party Animals).

As the daily coaching continued, I found my own passion for Gamerscore returning. That wide-eyed greed that elicits a thousand eyerolls from someone who doesn’t play videogames but knowing nods from your fellow pointmongers. The day after Nick took home NBA 2K6 for an easy 1,000/1,000, I brought it home myself. Those four monstrous “Tpok!”s — hot damn! I didn’t nab the full thousand, but earning 750G in 30 minutes was reward enough. Oh, sweet Gs — how I’d missed you.

By summer’s end, Nick had surpassed his goal, boosting his Gamerscore by somewhere between 10K and 15K. (Pretty damn awesome, considering he also played some Gamerscore-intensive games for fun — Dragon Age II, Fallout: New Vegas — while busting his butt for both magazine and website five days a week.)

And I’d fallen in love with Achievements all over again. It was like validation of the old adage “The best way to learn is to teach” (or in this case, “guide,” really). I’d learned that sometimes, all you need to do to get fired-up again about an old hobby is to hit pause, wait a good long while, and then resume. Having had my break, I’m as gung-ho about Achievements as I’ve ever been.

Are you with me, fellow score fiends? Are you still excited about Achievements? Are you over them? Somewhere in between? Share your thoughts, anecdotes, and obsessions below!